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U.K.’s Conservative leader pledges full support for gay agenda

David Cameron, the heir-presumptive of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has told a homosexual magazine to expect a “gay-friendly” future Conservative government. Cameron, who has packaged himself the “heir to Blair,” also told Attitude magazine that the Church of England should change its policies on homosexuality, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com.

The Tory leader, whose party is likely to win in this year’s general election, strove to convince homosexuals that the new Conservative Party would be as friendly to them and their political goals as Labour had been under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He apologized for past Tory policies that were against the gay agenda, saying, “That has changed. I think we can look gay people in the eye and say, ‘You can now back us... because we now support gay equality’.”

The Labour government has promised Stonewall, the U.K.’s leading homosexualist political lobby, “crackdowns” on “faith-based” bullying in schools and guidelines that will “compel” religious schools to comply with the normalization of homosexuality. Religious schools, they have said, must not teach Christian doctrine on sexuality “as though it is true.”

In his interview with Attitude, Cameron effectively pledged his party to continuing these policies that many fear amount to government suppression of religious expression.

Asked, “Do you think that the right of gay children to have a safe education trumps the right of faith schools to teach that homosexuality is a sin?” Cameron, a practicing Anglican replied, “Basically yes - that's the short answer to that, without getting into a long religious exegesis. I mean, I think, yes.

“I mean, I think, yes. I think..... [long pause] that if our Lord Jesus was around today he would very much be backing a strong agenda on equality and equal rights, and not judging people on their sexuality.”

“I don't want to get into an enormous row with the [Anglican] Archbishop [of Canterbury, Rowan Williams] here. But I think the Church [of England] has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through - sorting this issue out and recognizing that full equality is a bottom line full essential.”

Cameron assured Attitude’s Johann Hari that the Conservative Party had changed since the days of Margaret Thatcher, who in 1988 installed Section 28, the amendment to the Local Government Act 1986 that said local authorities “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality.” Section 28 was repealed in 2003 after heavy lobbying by homosexualist activists.

Cameron said that the idea of changing homosexual civil partnerships to marriage is “worth looking at” and said that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt children. He even said he was confident that he could convince the Catholic hierarchy of Scotland that “there are occasions when gay adoption is a perfectly sensible and straightforward thing.”

The “ideal adoption,” he said, is “finding a mum and dad, but there will be occasions when gay couples make very good adoptive parents. So I support gay adoption.”

When Hari pointed out that the virulently anti-religious National Secular Society has called for the defunding of religious schools on the grounds that they are hothouses of homophobia, Cameron did not disagree, saying only, “This is not the aim of our policy.

“I think you prevent it from happening by having some good ground rules about the teaching of things like sex education and some clear rules about what faith organizations are and are not allowed to do.”

Asked his stand on the Christian marriage registrar who was sacked for refusing to perform homosexual civil partnership ceremonies, Cameron said that “faith-based organizations and charities” should be encouraged: “As long as they are not discriminating in any way in the services that they provide, you're fine.”

“I think if you are a Catholic prison charity, as long as your services are available to everyone, no matter what their religion, their sexuality, their ethnicity, you're fine. We shouldn't force you to become a multi-faith group. You can be a single faith group. But you must not discriminate in the provision of your services. It seems to me that is the key distinction that you have to make.”

Ruth Gledhill, religion editor for the Daily Telegraph, commented, “From this logic, then, I assume he will force charities for blind people also to offer their services to deaf people. I've long thought it discriminatory that, as an able-bodied person, I'm not entitled to a disabled parking permit.

“How far is this ludicrous equal rights scenario going to go? Even further down the road to ridiculous extremes under the Tories than it already has under Labour, it seems.”

Cameron’s comments about the Church of England closely echo those of former Prime Minster Tony Blair in an interview with Hari for the same magazine last year. Blair, who was received into the Catholic Church December 2007 by the former Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy O’Connor, said that the Catholic Church needs to “rethink” its “position” on homosexuality.

Blair’s comments were widely ridiculed even in the mainstream press and prompted the current Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, to remind Blair that he does not speak for the Catholic Church.

TAGS: United Kingdom David Cameron Gordon Brown gay agenda Church of England homosexuality Tony Blair Christian doctrine on sexuality

[02/09/2010]

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